of “Then I defy you stars!” (V.i.24)

Say what you like about the Italian teenager, but let’s all agree that Romeo really knocked it out of the park with his grand gesture. You see grand gestures on screen all the time: Ryan Gosling builds the dream home in The Notebook, Liv Tyler chooses mortality in The Return of the King, Kirsten Dunst designs that roadtrip in Elizabethtown, Humphrey Bogart says, “We’ll always have Paris,” in Casablanca, and the Beast gives Belle that magnificent library I still daydream about. A grand gesture is an uncharacteristically spectacular act of love. So, while woefully unnecessary, Romeo’s suicide definitely qualifies as a grand gesture.

Continue reading “It’s the Little Things”